I'm a new member, and this is my first post. My father, Robert L. Taylor, was a Watertender stationed aboard the destroyer Cassin (DD-372) on 12/7/41. Cassin and her sister ship Downes were drydocked in front of the battleship Pennsylvania during the attack.

I was born in 1948, and grew up regarding my father as a hero of the highest order, and always hoped he would talk to me about his experieinces, but he never would. If anyone is interested, here is about all I was ever able to coax out of him. He told me he was sitting on deck that morning reading the funny papers when the attack started - that's it, all he would tell me. If you consider the cataclysmic damage done to these two destroyers, it isn't hard to imagine what he went thru during and after the attack. I do know that he would never read the funnies in the paper, even years later, a negative association sort of thing. He passed away in October of '98.

I was able to find out that he stayed at Pearl until the summer of '42, undoubtedly involved in the horrendous clean up work (as a WT he was an accomplished welder). He then received orders to the USS Gamble, (DM-15, ex DD-123), and was in the Solomon Islands from day one at Guadalcanal until roughly Bougainville in November of '43, when he was finally returned stateside. He and my mother married in May of '44, and she told me many times what a wreck he was when he finally came home. Battle fatigue was an unknown thing back then..... Hope some of you find this interesting.

Welcome to PHA!I have an image that may be of interest to you. Cassin was part of a rare double-launch with her sister ship Shaw in 1935. I've got it posted at my Shaw site here. Cassin is on the left.

I'm about to head home; I'll post some other links of interest for you when I get there.